Chapter 3

- "Come on guys! Ten more to go!" cheered a supportive voice in the gym.

- "Easy to say Mina, you are just working out with your own body weight" Dom answered. It had been two months since the Judgment Day had met Mina. Whenever they were in town, they would ask her to hang out with them, sometimes they went to the restaurant or to play snooker or even bowling together. The only rule was to avoid talking about Greg or about her bruises. One day, JD came with the weird idea to invite her to the gym to work out with them. She was shy at the beginning, telling she was not made to lift weights and that she would only bother them. Mina couldn't have been more wrong, the guys were surpassing themselves to impress her, or giving her advice on how to perform an exercise. Except for Dom, who only wanted to impress Rhea. Boys will always be boys, and for now the two winners of this friendly competition were Damian and Finn.

- "You really are a good motivation, Rapunzel" said Finn, a bright smile on his sweating face. Rapunzel was the nickname he gave Mina, due to her long hair always tangled with sewing threads each time they went to her shop. The two of them had build a strong friendship over time, laughing together, sharing an insane amount of personal stories and sometimes talking about their problems. She discovered that he was the sweetest guy in the group and also a helpless romantic, craving for hugs and physical contact. This led her to call him Teddy Bear, due to his soft hair and his bushy beard that he often used to tickle her. Finn really helped her to open up and to gain in confidence, even succeeding to make her scream in laughter when he fell face to earth while playing bowling.

"You don't know your luck, Finn." Thought Damian. The tall man was craving to be able to also hold Mina in his arms and to make her laugh. But here was the truth: he was unable to do so. Unlike Finn or JD, he didn't know how to choose the good words, the good tone, the good moments. She forgave him after the night he got angry about her bruises, he would have preferred that it was not the case. The kindness and sweetness of this woman was tripping him. At least if she was angry at him, he would have known what to do, he would have tried is best to earn her forgiveness and even her friendship, but he already had it, without even doing anything and he didn't understand why. "Don't worry, it's okay, I know you didn't intend to hurt my feelings." That's what she said with a big smile when he went to apologize. Since that day he would try his best to look uninterested, focusing on his training, but he couldn't help it. Each time they went to see her, he came with the bandana she made around his head, craving for her to notice, hoping she would ignore him. His gaze went back to Finn, who was performing squats with Mina laying on his shoulders, laughing and smiling, JD asking to lift her after.

Sometimes, when he was in his hotel room, he would pleasure himself thinking about her, imagining her curves, dreaming to touch her skin with his fingers and running his mouth all over her to taste every single inch of her body. He would remember her smell, so tempting, her voice, so sweet, the sound of her breath, so thrilling, he would focus on the lips he wanted to kiss. When he would come eventually, he would feel dirty, fighting for these images to fade away, ashamed with guilt to desire this woman. She was not his, he didn't have the right to have any feeling for her. He was not the good one for Mina, or for anybody else. Despite all of this, each time he saw her, she would smile at him with her sparkling emerald eyes, talk to him with the sweetest voice, greet him with a hug he wished to never end and hated at the same time.

-"Take it easy Priest!" Rhea's voice put an end to his inner fight. "You are going to dislocate your shoulders. That's enough for today, we all need a shower."

He remained silent, took his towel and followed Dom, Finn and JD to the men locker room. With a sigh he grabbed his soap and headed to the shower. The sound of the falling water covered the laughs and jokes of his friends, and he closed his eyes as the water touched his face. Memories came back to his mind, painful memories, he remembered light brown hair falling on the floor, hazelnuts eyes, and tears. The tears of the woman he once loved and lost. She shared his life for three years, cooking meals when he would come back from trainings or shows, massaging his sore body, encouraging him to follow his dreams. "You will see, one day I'll be the best and we'll have a beautiful house" that was the promise he kept telling her when she was crying because of his absences. When she got sick, he kept telling her about the bright future he would bring her, she was always smiling to him despite her sad eyes and falling hair. One day, he was warming up for a show when his phone rang, it was the hospital, his fiancée was dead. The information didn't hit him, he headed to the ring, fought as he always did and came back to the locker room where he collapsed.

"Damian? What are you doing in there?" Finn's voice woke him up. "Dammit"

He cleaned himself quickly before coming back to the changing room, tears blurring his vision. He managed to get dressed without being caught by Dom and JD, but Finn was looking at him with serious eyes. "Don't look at me." Before leaving the room, his tag team partner put a hand on his shoulder:

-"Still thinking about Frederica?" He knew the story; he was the first one to grab Damian from the floor when he finally realised she was dead. "Come on lad, it's been two years, you need to move on."

- "How?!" Damian screamed, letting his tears run on his cheeks. "It's my fault if she is dead, I neglected her, I wasn't here for her, I even cheated on her while she was fighting cancer, it's like I killed her!"

Damian fell on the floor, letting his sorrow overwhelm him. Each time Frederica came back to his mind was more and more painful. He was unable to forget and unable to forgive himself, this was his curse. Finn stayed quietly next to him, hand on his shoulder, waiting for Damian to stop crying and calm down.

He finally stood up, wiping away his last tears as Finn held him his new jacket, sewn by Mina. She had finished their order a couple weeks ago, calling them with excitement in her voice, looking forward to see their reaction when they would try them. They were all made with black linen so they could wear them in summer, each jacket being customised and embroidered by hand. Dom simply had his initials on the back, JD chose an ace of spades containing his name, Finn had a more complex design, as he wanted the silhouette of the demon king surrounding his name. Damian's embroidery was a mosaic of symbols including a bow and arrows, the Puerto Rican flag, a cross and many others mixed to form the silhouette of a ghost floating around his name. When he tried on the jacket, the music playing in the shop was "Lorelei" by Scorpions.

They both went out of the changing room, meeting the others outside of the building. They all looked at Damian with a questioning gaze.

-"The big guy lost his contact lenses, had to help him!" Finn said with a bright smile. "Thanks man! You are a genius!" One more time, Finn had his back, finding the perfect explanation for his red and puffy eyes.

-"Time to eat!" shouted Dom "Where should we go? I'm craving for chicken tenders".

-"I'm not coming tonight" Mina timidly answered "I'm already late to go back home, Greg is waiting for me" she explained while looking at her phone. She gave each member of the Judgment Day a hug and thanked them for the evening she had with them, when Damian's turn came, he tried his best to keep an impassive face. He watched her walk quickly to leave them, her long hear swirling with the wind as the lyrics of "Lorelei" came back to his mind: "Those were the days, now I've lost my illusions. Sometimes I wake in the night and I call out your name"

Dom was happily eating his chicken tenders when Rhea's phone rang. She looked at the screen with a puzzled face.

-"Hi Mina, wha…" A loud shriek came from the phone, every member of the Judgment Day could hear it.

-"Help me! He's going to kill me!"

-"Who are you calling bitch? You're so dead now".

-"NOOOOO"

The call ended as they all looked at each other with horror in their eyes. Without event thinking, they all rushed out of the restaurant and ran to Damian's car.